


Burning, Burning Bright

by NoelleAngelFyre



Series: The Damned, The Lost, and The Forgotten [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014), The Flash - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Family Vengeance, Gen, Revenge killing, Semi-Canon Compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-19
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 19:14:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,912
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10367499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoelleAngelFyre/pseuds/NoelleAngelFyre
Summary: "They deserve to die.  All of them.""I know." she whispers. "But you deserve to live more than they deserve to die."





	

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing related to "The Flash" TV series - characters, events, etc. I own the minor changes to this plot, and my original character(s) belong to me. Please enjoy.

Family dinners come every month like clockwork: no circumstance deters time from its onward course, and equally so nothing deters Uncle from his intentions. Life moves onward, without stopping. Daily obstacles are stepped over, personnel issues handled with one sweep of the hand or another, and a funeral is attended with barely a blink before it’s back to business. Not even his daughter’s death—by his own hand—softens Uncle, not even for a moment.

Raffi says nothing—for survival is based upon the discretion of silence—but wishes Uncle possessed at least the decency to retrieve Anastazia’s body for a proper burial. She deserved as much in the way of dignity. But there was no body, only an empty casket lowered into a pauper’s grave and a cheap funeral overseen by a sniveling old man with a cold who stuttered over every word.

And as quickly as the wish comes, it passes. He mustn’t forget her betrayal, and betrayal is unforgivable when it is against the family.

…Still, if she had only come home…

Raffi dislikes this venue. It is far too public. Exposed. Uncle glorifies the bullet-proof glass and thinks nothing more of it. Raffi disagrees. If Anastazia proved nothing else, it is that the greatest enemies can come from within. Has the restaurant been thoroughly searched? The employees scrutinized until they are deemed loyal, or at least paid well enough to hold their tongues? The exits—have they been secured from the outside and still available for a quick escape?

“You worry too much, Nephew.” Uncle chides him, looking far too relaxed. He has been quite relaxed since Anastazia’s death, as though the bullet entering her heart relieved him of a lifetime’s burdens. “Tonight, we discuss a little business, make a few points clear, and then we eat and drink.”

Business always comes first. Men will starve before Uncle allows a little thing like necessary sustenance to interfere with his words. He has things to say and they will be said before a single morsel passes the lips. Best to fill up on drink first, then wait. The food, when it eventually enters the belly, will sop up most of the liquor.

“Our own drivers are ripping us off.” This is the latest of Uncle’s complaints; it would not even be a concern worthy of addressing, Raffi knows, had one foolish driver not recently crossed Uncle and turned an unfavorable mood (started by Uncle having to wait for his car to arrive) into bloodlust. Anastazia always said Uncle could be riled up by the silliest little things—“First-World problems,” she would say. Raffi thinks if anyone knew this from personal experience, from being the eternal cause of these silly little things, it was Anastazia. But perhaps not entirely. Perhaps one birthed the other. “Someone is paying them to _steal_ from us.”

_Steal_ is a harsh word, Raffi thinks. The drivers’ behavior has not quite escalated this far. Negligent actions, forgetful mindsets, all cost Uncle a bit of spare change here and there, but not stealing. This is simply a sign the family needs to screen employees more carefully.

Kyle Nimbus proved as much.

He scowls, quietly, privately, at the man’s memory. Nimbus was competent enough as a bodyguard—the only one capable of keeping up with Anastazia—and effective as Uncle’s hired gun, in a way that unsettled Raffi from time to time. He ought to have kept to himself, head down and not an independent thought. He would have been a favored gun, given all assignments with full approval. Instead, he had to think himself worthy of interfering with Uncle’s plans. He had to think he deserved something more, someone well above his pay grade—and her! Foolish girl, to encourage him in her shameless way, and for what? For a little bit of pleasure in bed?

He was wrong to pity her. She deserved her lackluster fate. She was a disgrace to the family.

“None of you will sleep,” Uncle continues, leaning forward with emphasis, “until we find out who. And then those thieves…” a pause, for dramatic purposes, “will draw their last breath.”

Silence, because there is nothing to be said when Uncle has that look in his eye. The men gathered around this table know better. Survival is based off the discretion of silence.

_Clap. Clap. Clap. Clap._ “Bravo, bravo.” _Click, click, click_ of heels—a woman’s shoe? There are no women permitted in this place! “You always did have such a flair for theatrics, Daddy Dear.”

Uncle is already on his feet, so he is first to turn sharply and make the demanded investigation into this presumptuous intruder; Raffi is second, but less to address an uninvited guest and more to stare in bewilderment at the impossible: Anastazia’s voice, but this woman bears no resemblance—and Anastazia is dead! Dead and gone! This woman—

“What’s wrong?” her head tilts ever slightly to the left. Anastazia used to tilt her head like that. “You don’t recognize me? I suppose the hair, and the eyes too, are a little disconcerting…but I think the look suits me, don’t you?”

One hand, tipped bright red, lazily cards through multi-toned strands and sweeps them aside. Anastazia used to do that—toss her hair with a hand and flick her head (Uncle said she looked like a wild horse). And Anastazia used to smirk in that way, and her lips always looked dangerous in red. Like they were painted in blood…but it’s a crazy thought. He’s already had too much to drink. He’s seeing things. They’re all seeing things. Anastazia is…

The first man coughing is to Raffi’s immediate left. The second is across the table. The third and fourth are each at Uncle’s side, at the head of the table. Then he sees the smoke—or is it gas? Yes; it must be gas: a terrible shade of green, poisonous merely in its hue—coiling like a great unfurling serpent across the floor. Men are dropping, quite literally, like flies. Raffi goes for his gun, but what purpose shall it serve? He can’t shoot gas. But if this woman…if she really is…then he will put her in the ground once and for all. _He_ is the loyal son! He will—

The grip on his wrist registers a second too late. The shattering _crack_ of his shoulder being wrenched from its socket is far more vivid. He screams and looks beyond the glass. This is a public sidewalk. Someone must see something. Hear something. Someone, anyone…

No one.

“Hurts, doesn’t it, cousin?” That voice…it trickles low in his ear, distinct above the blood rushing hot and fast, and suddenly she’s standing much too close and those violet—violet! He’s never seen eyes like these in his life!—eyes are blazing with gold in their depths. “To know you are alone. To know there is no one coming to help you.”

His gaze, unfocused, slipping in and out of clarity, drops to her hands. Her hands are free. Her hands aren’t touching him. Why is his shoulder unhinged? Why is his shooting arm hanging limp and useless like a ragdoll’s at one side? How? _Why?_

“Did you cry for me, cousin?” she continues; there is poison dripping on her tongue. “Or did you spit on my grave? Like _him_?”

_Uncle…_ but his uncle lies on the floor, gasping for breath and clutching his belly.

A hand locks in his hair, nails scraping the scalp, and every muscle in his neck protests at the violence, at the way his head his yanked back without mercy. He can see her eyes. Her face. There is such hatred in those eyes. Molten fury, only barely contained behind a veneer of composure and self-containment. He’s seen this look once before. Only once.

“I should make you watch.” She whispers. _Watch what?_ He wants to ask, but there are no words. His throat is suddenly much too tight. He breathes, but the air is polluted, poisoned, toxic. It burns. He chokes, coughs, gasps without words. The grip she has on him is gone, and he falls to the floor.

And the world goes black.

***

_“You’re fire. An inferno that could destroy this city. Nothing could ever stand in your path.”_

He remembers the words, from a different lifetime. Interesting, the things which so seamlessly transition from one life to another. She was fire then. She is fire now.

She is beautiful.

“All those years,” _crack!_ —a locked fist against Araz’s already-bruised jaw, “all the crap I put up with,” _swipe_ —her nails rip across the old man’s face like a wildcat, like a lioness finalizing her kill, “everything you put me through!” _crack!_ —and this time Araz howls in pain as his eye socket splits, “And I get a single bullet! Left in a back alley to bleed out like a damn _dog_!!”

Her nails make their mark on the other side: elegant asymmetry. Then, as if the thought comes to her on impulse, she kicks the chair out from under the old man. The restraints aren’t particularly well-bound, and his hands come loose in the process. Half a second later, when Stazia is crushing both palms between the kitchen floor and her heels, Kyle can only assume such was her full intention.

She’s so beautiful.

“All these years, you had no problem expressing yourself.” She pauses in the torture, long enough to pace a slow circle around Araz’s gasping form. “Yelled at me. Cursed me. Called me every name in the book. And yet, when it finally came down to it…a single,” the left hand, again, “damn,” the right hand, twice more, “ _bullet_!”

He’s fairly certain every bone in both hands has been thoroughly broken, but the third blow to Araz’s right hand assures it. The old man screams, then sobs. He’s sprawled across a kitchen floor, of his own restaurant, sobbing like a child. Kyle wonders how often Stazia wanted him like this. How many times she wanted her father writhing and shrieking in this same way.

Many, many times. Of that much, he’s certain.

“You couldn’t even be bothered to get creative with me.” Stazia whispers. She stands above him, fire in human flesh, goddess triumphant, Valkyrie before the death strike. “You just wanted me to disappear. But I wanted you to suffer. To feel your body breaking beyond your control. To feel the agony and know there isn’t a damn thing you can do to stop it. If I could, I would make you scream like I did when your bullet unleashed the fire. When I was engulfed in flames, my body turned against me to be reborn. I would make you feel it, old man. Every last bit of it. …But no. No, I won’t kill you.”

And there it is: a flicker of hope, of some absurd notion that this won’t be the last hour on earth. He can see it in Araz’s eyes. He can see the tiny upward lift of the head, the look he gives Stazia which almost seems grateful.

“Get to it, baby.” She says; long legs sidestep the old man en route to the back door. “Someone will have noticed the bodies through the window by now.”

Cold. Calculating. Yet blazing fire. She is glorious.

This is the first time Araz notices him. Well, enough to actually realize who he’s looking at. Kyle isn’t insulted. It took almost ten minutes for the old man to appreciate the woman beating him into a bloody pulp wasn’t a vengeful ghost, but a vengeful force of nature. Flesh and blood. Alive and well. Just like the man now smiling down at him.

“I’m going to kill you, Araz.” He murmurs, words of the past dancing their way into the present. “Right here. Right now. Just like I promised.”

Kyle Nimbus never breaks a promise.

***

He finds her in the alley, a cigarette between two fingers and a thin trickle of smoke coiling in the air. She smokes quite a bit these days. Not traditional nicotine—“Just because I don’t wear perfume anymore doesn’t mean I’ll reek like rotted garbage,” she informed him, when he made a comment the first (and last) time—but a special concoction of natural herbs. It helps her throat. She drinks water like a fish too. Her throat bothers her the worst, of all the symptoms.

“Feel better?” he leans against the wall beside her. There’s a light chill in the air tonight, but she seems unmoved even in a sleeveless shirt. Of course, her body temperature runs so high it takes nothing short of the Arctic Tundra to make her shiver. They argue constantly over the thermostat at home.

She always wins, and he’s just started layering clothes.

“This wasn’t about feeling better, Kyle.” She says, rather crisply. In a rapid series of movements, she incinerates the half-burned cigarette in a pinched grip, and then whips out another one from her pocket. She doesn’t have a lighter. She doesn’t need a lighter. She flicks her index finger against her thumb and sparks fly (literally). Two quick drags, a long and heavy exhale, and then she continues, “He felt nothing, putting me down like a dog. I feel nothing, knowing he just breathed his last.”

“Did you ever love him?”

It’s a question he entertains from time to time, occasionally mentions in a round-about way, and now finally asks because, well, the man’s dead and rotting on a kitchen floor. There’s no better time to ask.

“I don’t remember.” She says, with barely a blink. “Maybe I tried, once. If I did, it didn’t last long. He wasn’t interested in loving me. I wasn’t going to bend myself in half, trying to convince him I was worth loving. Especially when there was someone else who didn’t need any convincing.”

“That your way of calling me easy?” he smirks; he enjoys the way the smoldering tip reflects in her eyes.

“I’d never dream of inflating your ego.” She blows out another stream of sweet aroma. “You might implode.”

“We’re getting there.” His tone lowers, leaning close, very close; now he can breathe her in. The very air surrounding her seems more apparent than ever before; seeping into his cells, burrowing deep, deep, so very deep…he draws another breath. Vanilla. Mint. Honey. His mouth waters.

“You know better.” She whispers, but without a real threat. He’s close, ever closer, and when her spine rests against the wall without a viable escape route, it’s without any real indication that she wants to get away from him.

“When has that ever stopped me?” he speaks barely above a whisper, soft exhales crafted with words. Her eyes flick down, to his mouth, more than once.

“Can you feel me?” it’s half a rhetorical question; the past months have answered it, several times over, but he’ll respond as many times as she asks because her eyes shimmer, gold overtaking purple, and it is a glorious sight.

“Feel you.” His fingertips graze a path over her face, down the slope of her neck, and lazily entwine in copper and platinum strands. “Breathe you in. _Taste_ you.”

Her breath hitches, a sharp flash of the throat beneath his lips. It won’t last long, for self-preservation, but physical closeness has an entirely new meaning for them, now that merely stepping into her personal space brings her cells, her air, the invisible threads of her form into his reach. It is a new level of intimacy, and nothing within the realm of human comprehension can compare.

“ _Kyle…_ ” there it is: the reluctant reminder that he needs to back away. It’s the change in tone, when her voice sounds raw and dips enough below the timbre of femininity that it’s noticeable. He’s heard it before; seen the flames dancing in her gaze. The first time, it was a surprise. By now, it’s nothing new. Adapting to each other’s oddities is simply a way of life, now.

“We should go.” He says, with no small hesitation. “Someone will have noticed by now.”

The fire dies a little in her eyes, embers smoldering low in amethyst pits, then she looks back into the door left ajar, where the old man lies cooling in his own blood, and the spark revives. “Let’s make sure of it.” She whispers, and he makes a point to stand back.

***

Mama usually keeps the television volume low, so as not to distract the girls during “warm-up sessions”. Typically speaking, running the mid-afternoon news isn’t enough to attract attention—the young bloods could care less about what’s happening in the world—but human beings possess an unnatural fascination with tragedy and that which borders on grotesque, so when the fresh-faced reporter starts talking about the murder of an entire crime family in one fateful evening, all attention is on the screen.

Stazia keeps her distance from the working girls; her position as the one employee who keeps clothing on during a show is distinct enough, but she also isn’t one to socialize. Most of these girls are five, six, years her junior and lack maturity along with it. Most of them know better than to bother her. The rest have to learn through experience.

“It’s so terrible!” Carrie is two-weeks into her employment, college-hopeful paying tuition the old fashioned way; a pretty little blonde thing with green eyes, she’s innocent enough (see also: naïve) but has not yet grasped the concept of holding her tongue. “Have you ever heard of something so _awful_ , Stazia?”

And there is another demonstration of how new Carrie is to this place, to the rules not quite spoken but learned in good time. Those who have been here for a decent amount of time know better than to address Stazia by name. She is Mama’s favorite, and with such favor comes a bit of respect. One doesn’t call Stazia by name unless she’s given it the proverbial stamp of approval. To date, no one has earned their stamp.

Still, Stazia possesses too much class and graceful poise to snap at the poor girl. “Such is the way of that life.” She murmurs, taking a slow drag from her cigarette; she doesn’t release it immediately, but lets the herbal fumes circulate in her throat for a pleasant minute before exhaling. “For every choice, there is a consequence.”

“But still!” Carrie gushes; sheltered little darling. “To be burned alive over dinner! I simply can’t imagine—!!”

“Carrie,” Mama, impeccable timing as always, appears in a striking silhouette of lace and velvet, “are you a dancer in this establishment?” a shy nod, embarrassed downward tilt of the head, and Mama continues, “then get your sweet self on the stage and practice. Mama expects more than a pretty penny from you tonight.”

“Yes, Mama. I promise, Mama.” The girls may not yet know, nor may they truly ever, respect for Stazia, but they bow at a single word from the woman who’s putting a roof over their heads. And Stazia finally gets a little peace and quiet to finish her cigarette.

Mama’s eyes look down, pointedly, at knuckles wrapped in black leather. Inconspicuous enough, given Stazia’s wardrobe is never without a generous helping of the aforementioned, but Mama knows all and sees all. “How badly did you hurt yourself, Baby Girl?”

“Oh, come on, Mama,” Stazia smiles, ever the practiced demeanor of perfect innocence (it looked better when she had brown eyes instead of purple, but she can always work with what she’s go), “you know I always play nice on the playground.”

“Mm.” Mama doesn’t believe her (she knows better) but discretion is the crux of their relationship. “You sure you don’t want to take the night off?”

“No sense in going home to an empty apartment.” It won’t be empty for long, but at the present moment it’s exactly that and she’ll lose her mind sitting there, waiting and wondering. “Besides, there's no place I'd rather be than here.”

“Ah, Sweet Baby Girl,” the elder plants a cherry-red kiss right on her forehead, “you know just what Mama likes to hear.”

***

He enjoys the fear: the tension rippling over limbs and pooling in eyes that grow too big, too wide, at the mere sight of him. If he is ever bothered to reflect on it, Kyle suspects it all started, as many things do, in childhood. The sounds of fists to his mother’s fragile form, her pleading whimpers, and the little boy cowering in his bedroom corner trying to block out every sound. That boy was a victim, afraid of one wrong word, of putting one toe out of line. That boy never dared imagine a day when people might whimper and cower for him.

But the boy is a man, and the man invokes the same response as his father. He understands now, a little: the thrill, the excitement, the way weaker emotions feed into one’s sense of self-worth. He may not be the most intimidating form in existence, but his reputation achieves the same result as if he were some towering brute. He sees it now, reflected in this woman’s eyes as she looks and disbelieves and fears and searches for an escape route that doesn’t exist.

“Judge Howard,” he smiles, a sharp expression that bares his teeth too much for genuine cordiality, “it’s nice to see you again.”

_It’s nice to see you vulnerable, at my mercy, without those flowing black robes and armed court deputies to protect you._ The daylight isn’t the best time for this; certainly wouldn’t be ideal if he was still carrying a gun as weapon of choice. But there is something thoroughly delightful about catching her off-guard, not a judge of criminal court but a mother buying last-minute presents for her darling daughter. Her eyes dart downward, over the rather garish black coat he swiped from a thrift store. She’s looking for a gun, and his smile widens just a little bit more.

“You died.” She declares. It’s rather fascinating, the way people say those two little words—or some version thereof. Do they think such has the power to siphon the breath from his lungs and turn him back to the grave? Does this woman, this insignificant little insect, truly believe she has power such as that?

“Hm,” he tilts his head, a little, eyes narrowing enough to make her squirm, “you say that like it was an accident.” _You say that like you didn’t send me to die, choking on my own breath. Like you didn’t help them steal a future that was meant to be mine._

He steps forward; she stumbles back. The glass walls meet her halfway through the next step; he suddenly has a greater appreciation for this elevator. Glass walls on all sides, yet no one throws a second glance in here. There’s nothing to warrant great suspicion or concern. Yet.

“Remember the last thing you said to me in the courtroom?” _I’ll make sure you remember, right now._ “May God have mercy on… _your_ soul.”

He doesn’t transform often—he can’t risk harming Stazia—so there is a true feeling of liberation to let his body dissolve from physical form into poison. But the greater feeling comes when Judge Howard’s eyes grow wide and the first startled breath she takes seals her fate. Just as it should have sealed his.

_I am poison._

_I am death._

***

Kyle doesn’t watch much of the news—he stopped after the fifteenth broadcast of his execution became fifteen too many for endurance purposes—so he wonders if there has been some coverage of… _this_ , and he’s remained blissfully ignorant. He can’t help but smirk, just a bit, as he takes these new circumstances in.

“Does your mom know you dress up like that on school days?” he inquires, with relative pleasantness. The kid looks so determined, so on edge and ready for a fight…but really. Who runs around (emphasis on _run_ ; he barely heard the runt before accusations were being thrown around) in red leather getup?

“Answer me!” Hmm; this one’s a little pushy…he could do with a lesson in manners. “ _Why_ did you kill that woman?”

_Why…?_ Oh. He gets it. The kid doesn’t recognize him. He has no idea who Kyle Nimbus is, that there should be no feasible way Kyle Nimbus is here, in the back hallway of the mall, talking and breathing and upright and very much alive. This could be a nice change of pace. He doesn’t have to deal with that “You died” and “You’re supposed to be dead” crap, for once.

“She deserved to die.” He answers, succinctly, and the kid’s jaw tightens—he shouldn’t do that; teeth can crack that way, if you clench too hard. “Now go run away. There’s still one more name on my list. Don’t make me add you to it.”

He’s actually (relatively speaking) sincere about the last part. Not necessarily for sentimental reasons, but because an unplanned death creates complications, and he doesn’t like complications. Smooth, clean, and clinical: best to keep things that way, especially when everyone thinks he’s dead.

The kid’s jaw locks, again, and his body tenses half a second before he—oh. Oh, seriously? Does this costumed idiot really think he’s going to fight a complete stranger? Rookie mistake: you never pick a fight unless you know, for certain, you can win it. Simple survival skill.

Kyle has a split-second warning before a fist is thrown in his face. Fortunately for him, and not so much for the kid, body language speaks volumes even before the first blow comes. A split-second is all he needs to respond in kind. And he greatly enjoys the startled look on the runt’s face when the fist goes through a cloud of gas.

He enjoys the pained groan, when his own fist delivers a real hit to the right jaw, just a little bit more.

There’s no need to waste much time with this one. It doesn’t even take that much, just a few wisps of poison creeping into a gaping mouth, and it begins. He wonders if he’ll ever grow tired of that sudden influx of absolute terror, when the lungs need to breathe and all energy becomes devoted to that one single purpose—and it is a futile task.

“Piece of friendly advice, kid.” He smirks, crouching closer just a little—it reminds him, most pleasantly, of Araz in his final moments. “Make sure you can take what’s thrown at you before you toss out the first punch.”

He would love to linger, but doesn’t. The unexpected cause complications, and he’s already wasted enough time on the brat.

***

“What the _hell_ is this?”

He looks briefly offended, but blinks it away—as he should, because cordial greetings aren’t really her thing. It takes him another minute to note the direction in which her hand is sweeping, towards the television and live news broadcast. Then he blinks again. “I call it justice on a silver dish.”

“I call it reckless stupidity.” Stazia snaps.

He has the audacity to shrug and sidestep her for the kitchen. “You say ‘tomato’…”

She feels heat flare in her palm; clenching it into a fist snuffs out the sparking flame, lest she incinerate her apartment. “Is it impossible for you to take this seriously? You _killed_ her, Kyle!”

“I don’t seem to remember you protesting that little fact when I first mentioned it.” Now he sounds irritated; his temper runs short these days, not like the forced patience when they first met.

“In private.” She isn’t afraid of him (never has been, but even less so now) and doesn’t back down at a glare which grows more piercing by the moment. “In her home, at night. In her car, through the air vents. In a back alley or her judicial chambers, for all I could care. Not in a crowded shopping mall, in the middle of the day, in a goddamn glass elevator!!! How many people watched her die, Kyle? _How many_??”

“What?” he growls, taking an aggressive step forward. “You think the cops will have them pick out a cloud of hydrogen cyanide from a line-up?”

She sees red—literally—and has to take a moment to calm down. She can’t see clearly when her eyes are like this. “And then there are those lovely reports about the Streak being at the mall too. Did you get acquainted with him, too?”

His anger ripples in place of dry amusement. “So, he has a name. Good to know.”

She could strangle him. “Kyle—”

His demeanor doesn’t change, not once. He’s perfectly calm, at ease, not a hint of anxiety, as he relays the story like one discusses their day at an eight-to-five desk job. He even helps himself to a bottle of water, sipped with care (he can handle water now—drinking, showering, as so on—but she’s lectured him enough of being careful that he plays it safe when she can see him). It doesn’t even occur to him that something could go wrong. Some little detail overlooked, and then everything unraveled. Everything. _Everything._

“So what now?” she asks, very quietly, from her place at the far wall. She feels tired. Exhausted.

He finishes the water and disposes of the bottle with a light flourish. “One more name.”

“No.”

She feels the sharpness of his gaze without actually gracing him with a look. “No?”

“No.” she straightens, has no choice but to do so, and lets herself bask in the heat of a renewed glower. “No more, Kyle. It’s over.”

“It’s over,” he speaks with a locked jaw, with murder in his eyes, and knuckles white, “when Joe West is writhing at my feet like a gutted fish.”

“Nothing would please me more.” It’s true, because she cannot and never will forget what Detective Joe West took from her; the deal he made with the devil and what was lost in his foolish transaction. “But enough is enough. Too much attention is being paid to all of this. The cops are still trying to solve what happened to my worthless waste of a family—and they were criminals. Imagine what lengths the law will go to find the killer of a _judge_.”

“Do you think I really care about that?” he retorts; she thinks his next move, this forward stride to the door, is essentially to emphasize the point in a way that rakes her nerves in all the wrong spots. Better to walk away, leave him be…but she’s never to be without the last word.

“If you walk out the door,” she says, willing her voice to not crack, “and choose your petty revenge over us…don’t bother coming back.”

She gets the last word, she gets to be the one to walk away first, because that’s what she does. She stays on top. She stays first. It’s the only way to survive. It’s also supposed to be a duo act: staying on top, staying first, with her lover. But while Kyle doesn’t have many faults, he has one: he doesn’t always think things through. Most of the time, he does, but there are exceptions. He made one today.

She doesn’t cry or get emotional about it. She’s too tired to get upset, and tears cause pain when shed. It’s just easier to not get to the point where she must cry, to simply get the emotion out. It’s easier to not care that much. Except this is Kyle, and she’s condemned herself to care always, to care so much, to care too much.

***

Her bedroom door opens, half an hour later. She’s staring out the window. Even at this hour, Central City refuses to retire. People are bustling here and there. Cars drive by, some with windows rolled down and stereos pumping music so violently that she can nearly feel it beneath her fingertips. If there is a moon to be seen, it hides behind skyscraping rooftops.

It’s moments like this she misses the resort. Peace is hers, in that place. She can look up into an evening sky and admire the moon and stars and feel a cool breeze on her face. She wonders, occasionally, what has become of the place. Araz all-but owned it; will it now come under a new claim, or be sold to the highest bidder like cattle at an auction?

“Happy now?” Kyle says; she can feel his heat, though he stands a distance away, “I’m officially whipped.”

Despite his growling tone, despite her physical exhaustion, she can’t help but smirk. “I don’t recall we ever did that.”

He huffs, probably rolls his eyes even though she can’t see it, and comes a little closer. His heat is like fire, now, like the fire coursing hot through her veins, and a shiver quietly creeps along her spine at the feel of it. So close. So warm. Calling to her, beckoning to her with fingers licking at the skin and breathing silent invitation in her ear.

“He deserves to die.” Kyle whispers, low, near her hairline. “They all did.”

“I know.” she can’t, or won’t, look at him just yet. Across the street, there are a couple children playing together while their parents chat idly, a short distance away. “But you deserve to live more than they deserve to die.”

A pause, a slow exhale against her neck—so warm, _so_ warm…—and his brow rests at her crown. “Stazia—”

He doesn’t quite get the last syllable out before her lips are there, and she finally tastes his kiss after so long, after _too_ long. Consequences and playing it safe be damned to hell and back, her hands are everywhere and fingers pull urgently at hems for just the tiniest sliver of bare skin. Only when her legs bump the mattress edge does she get a sense of her bearings, and then it’s a matter of pulling at his shirtfront, simultaneously leaning backwards, before they meet the bedspread together. She loses a trembling gasp at the sudden closeness. It’s been so long since she could feel him like this: all of him, right here, with her…

He nips at her lower lip, then leans back. His eyes are dark, pupils wide, and there’s a slight flush creeping along the neckline. His shirt is out of sorts, and each breath is tight inside his chest. She can’t help but feel a bit triumphant. After nine months of abstinence, without practice or refinement, she still unravels him with perfect ease.

“What happened to knowing better?” he asks, but with a wicked smirk that sends heat pooling deep in her belly. Her hands reach for his shirt, for the hem she’s already teased upward, and jerks it up with a pointed look on her face. It pleases her when he doesn’t hesitate, but instead sits up, knees maintaining balance, and pulls the shirt free in one swift movement. Befitting as it would be for her to share his smirk, she can only exhale softly and ghost fingertips over his chest. All this pale skin…this beautiful body…hers. All hers. Forever hers.

She tilts up, enough to kiss the center of muscles which may have lost their mass but not their sharp form, defined clear beneath skin. A sigh flutters from his throat, and she smiles against warm flesh. “When has that ever stopped us?”


End file.
